How to use tech to become an actual wizard like Harry Potter

Stop waiting for your letter.

Fans of quills, letters, and playing sports with household items, there’s still hope. Wizards in Harry Potter don’t really use primitive muggle technology because, you know, they have magic. But that doesn’t mean you can’t become a wizard using muggle technology right?

Don’t fork out for a Kwikspell course. Here’s how to channel J.K. Rowling’s magic into your life, from illumination charms to working wands. As fellow British writer Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Lumos (illumination charm)

This pretty nifty little piece of magic makes a torch out of a wand, something we can all do with our smartphones. But if you want to put a little spin on the charm for the muggle world, program your smart home assistants and smart lights to react to the word “Lumos.”

There’s a few ways to do this, depending on whether you’re using a Google Home, Amazon Echo, or Apple HomePod. For muggles and tech noobs, your best bet is to use IFTTT, where you can find many formulas like this one that automate the process. Pop in some Philips Hue smart lights, use “Lumos” as a nickname within the app, and off you go. Use “Lumos Maxima” as a nickname to activate the whole system and “Nox” to turn everything off.

You can also do this on your smartphone, if you have an Android. Just say ”OK Google,” followed by “Lumos Maxima” to turn your flashlight on. To turn it off, “Nox.” This was set up by Google and Warner Bros. as a 2016 promotion for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and is still in action.

Alohomora (unlocking spell)

Unlocking doors with your voice isn’t just something young wizards can do to get into the forbidden third-floor corridor, or rescue godfathers from towers on Hippogriff-back. Smart locks are your best bet for implementing “alohomora” in your life. While most smart doorbells and locks like Nest Hello and Amazon’s Ring use a non-verbal type of magic (your smartphone’s proximity to them), there are some locks that allow you to bellow a spell at them.

Smart lock company August integrates all three major smart home assistants: Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit. To integrate Alexa, for example, name your door or lock “Alohomora,” so when you’re using Skills to open it with your voice, you can say “Alexa, lock Alohomora.” We know, the first part is clunky, but it’ll make sure it works. Your August lock must be connected to Wi-Fi using the August Connect device or August Doorbell Camera.

Sonorous (the amplification charm)

Want to talk over thousands of eager Quidditch fans at the World Cup? While you might not be able to point a wand at your throat like Dumbledore or Cornelius Fudge, you can use apps like Megaphone to turn your phone into a microphone. You just plug in your phone to speakers with a headphone jack (or an FM transmitter for a wireless microphone), open the app and start talking.

Accio (the summoning charm)

Whether you’re using Seamless, Grubhub, UberEats, Deliveroo, Foodora, Postmates, Doordash, Yelp Eat 24, Foodler, or another food delivery service, we’re in an age where “accio burger” is a legitimate and achievable magic trick.

Want something more specific? Say, one mammoth helping of your city’s best fried chicken, a copy of the paper, and a freshly squeezed orange juice? Accio Airtasker, where you can literally ask for anything and hope some bored sod is willing to take your galleons.

Can’t master the charm? You could use an owl to bring you things, if you were in the wizarding world. But here, while we know owls aren’t going to bring you sweet, sweet packages of goods from afar, perhaps drones are the new owls. Amazon Prime Air could bring a Howler to an unsuspecting customer in 30 minutes via drone. Witches and wizards in Iceland can get burgers and beer by drone, burritos and donuts are dropping from the sky on request, and if you’re in peril in the midst of a Triwizard Tournament death maze, you may one day be able to use drones to bring you a defibrillator (still too soon). If IBM has its way you’ll be able to accio objects from further away, with drones able to pass objects to each other in the sky.

Obliviate (forgetting charm)

Want to forget everything? There’s a solid muggle version of the “Obliviate” charm.

Wine. Lots and lots of wine.

While the wooden wands sold in Harry Potter shops aren’t actually going to create magic (only imaginative journeys of wonder, then sadness), there are some “wands” that will fill the hole in your life that is a trip to Ollivander’s.

Wand remote controls will make you feel like you’ve just picked up your own 11-inch holly wand with a phoenix feather core (lol there can only be two).

There’s this nifty infrared Kymera wand, which you can program to recognise 13 different gestures to control for your smartphone dock, TV, or Blu-ray player. Change the channels by swishing side to side, or flick up or roll your wrist to increase the volume. It has a polished-wood appearance and comes with a pretty illustrated manual so feels like the real deal.

There’s also this cheaper wand from The Noble Collection, which works with any IR remote control device — you can program your desired action attached to a left flick, right flick or a biiiiig swish.

If you’d like to start your own version of Dumbledore’s Army, JAKKS Pacific’s new interactive Wizard Training Wands let you play a version of duelling laser tag. Each wand, roughly styled as Harry’s, Dumbledore’s or Voldemort’s, will set you back $ 25, and contains a motion sensor that tracks your arm movements. You can learn 11 different spells to duel with — no Unforgivable Curses, jerks. You’ll be ready for the Battle of Hogwarts in no time (though no one can be truly ready for that).

If you’re more into the wandless type of magic, this crazy Bluetooth ring will do the trick — you’ll still have to motion though, unless you’re as good as Tom Riddle or Dumbledore.

If you’re keen to use a wand in a built, themed Harry Potter environment, and not just in your own home, make your way to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando, where the team is selling interactive wands for muggles to trigger 16 “magic” features throughout Diagon Alley and the village of Hogsmeade. They’re a pretty hefty $ 50 a pop.

Bits and bobs

Look, most wizards actively don’t want our muggle technology in their houses, as it would be culturally considered a mark of their lack of skills. According to Pottermore, “The magical community prides itself on the fact that it does not need the many (admittedly ingenious) devices that muggles have created to enable them to do what can be so easily done by magic. To fill one’s house with tumble dryers and telephones would be seen as an admission of magical inadequacy.” (Here’s a nifty little kitchen self-mixing muggle gadget that Molly Weasley might approve of though.)

But we’re not that proud, and want wizarding paraphernalia in our lives immediately. Here’s a few bits and pieces you can either grab now, or wait impatiently but confidently for.

Invisibility Cloak

This one’s coming guys, it’s only a matter of time. Scientists are on it. The University of Washington’s Professor Uhlmann has proposed a series of mathematical equations which could be used to build an invisibility cloak — it’s all about “transformation optics,” or the bending of light to make an object appear to have vanished. Researchers from the University of Texas, Austin have developed an ultra-thin material called a “metascreen,” and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, made an object disappear using an ultra-thin invisibility skin cloak. Scientists at the University of Rochester have created an optical-illusion device they’re likening to an invisibility cloak. So it’s being researched, just don’t go planning any late night Marauder’s Map missions with it in mind just yet.

The Weasley Clock

Having seven children and hosting the Order of the Phoenix requires some serious people management skills, and Molly Weasley is the queen of keeping tabs — mainly thanks to an enchanted clock in the kitchen. You too can track your nearest and dearest with the Weasley-inspired Eta Clock, which keeps track of registered users using GPS technology. Each hand can be assigned to a member of your household and can alert you when your loved ones are at the gym, home, work, or school, for example.

“The magical community prides itself on the fact that it does not need the many (admittedly ingenious) devices that muggles have created to enable them to do what can be so easily done by magic.”

Pottermore

Moving photos

What if your photos could move, like they do in the wizarding world? Sure, you could grab one of those lame video photo frames, but if you’re not into that, check out Lifeprint, an augmented reality wizardry printer that actually prints 3-by-4.5 photos that come to life. Select a photo, video, or GIF on your phone, and hit print. Then, using the app, you can see images come to life when you hover over them with your phone. So you can’t enchant the images for permanent animation the way a wizard or witch would, but this is still pretty cool. Just remember these photos are only representations of the subject, not actually your dear Lily and James.

Marauder’s Map

Do you solemnly swear you are up to no good? Messrs Padfoot, Prongs, Moony, and Wormtail are here to see your mischief managed. While privacy laws will inhibit your ability to keep track of everyone in your vicinity down to the room they’re in, there’s a couple of ways you can inject a little Marauders magic into your life. Use the Find My Friends app on your phone, tablet or smartwatch to keep track of your own little crew of renegades, or simply enjoy a little Easter egg with your smart home assistants. Say, “OK Google, I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” and see what happens. If you really want a map, Warner Bros. has an electronic replica which lets you use a wand to see little footprints wandering around Hogwarts.

Transport (look, we can dream)

Flying motorbikes

Badass gamekeeper Hagrid and godfather of dreams Sirius Black know how to travel, and we’ve been dabbling in the possibility of flying motorbikes in the muggle world. In 2017, a Russian startup unveiled their concept Scorpion-3, a fully-rideable hoverbike. As if that weren’t enough, Dubai police have hovercrafts. Now, to use this technology on a hog with a sidecar.

Broomsticks

While we’re still playing muggle quidditch on the shitty ground, perhaps one day we’ll get to a flying version of the sport. One suggestion? Personal jetpacks, which are well into production around the globe. Los Angeles-based JetPack Aviation led by Australian entrepreneur David Mayman has apparently made the only personal vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicle to receive FAA approval for a public flight. New Zealand’s Martin Aircraft, has long been making Optionally Piloted Hovering Air Vehicles (OPHAV), which can be flown with an onboard pilot or not.

The jetpacks have only been used for stunt work or rescue missions so far, and not for public use yet. But if there’s a way to attach a mountable broom-like object to the aircraft, then you’ll practically be zooming around on a Firebolt. Attach them to seven vehicles? You’ve got a quidditch side.

Flying cars

Mr. Weasley’s Ford Anglia had a mind of its own when manipulated by the Whomping Willow, but it’s usually a pretty reliable flying car for the gang. Pottermore refers to cars as the “one major exception to the general magical aversion to muggle technology,” along with motorbikes and trains. Even the Ministry of Magic uses cars.

Luckily, muggles are seriously playing with the reality of flying cars. Larry Page’s flying taxis are planned to take off in New Zealand by 2021. Slovakian startup AeroMobil has a new flying taxi concept that goes from car to electric plane. An Australian startup called Alauda is building electric, low-altitude aircraft to race. German company Volocopter, which is manufacturing Dubai’s future flying-taxis, just had a successful first test flight. And Airbus’ drone taxi successfully completed its first 53-second test flight in February.

Apparating

Once we nail this one, muggles will be unstoppable faux wizards. Apparating is just a wizard form of teleportation, with more freedom. How close are we? Well, in 2017, Chinese scientists teleported a photon particle from the Earth to a satellite orbiting 870 miles away. We’re a while off from teleporting organic matter, but imagine, once we get there you’ll be able to jump into a dark portal, pressed very hard from all directions, finding it hard to breathe, as if iron bands were tightening around your chest and your eyeballs were being forced back into your head, and then pop! You’re at work, boom. Just don’t get splinched.